Jeremiad
by Empatheia
Summary: [Tykki, Rhode, Rabi] In which an immortal being attempts to explain eternity to a finite being, fails, but has a good conversation anyway.


**A/N: **Written for **firehawk05 **for the July round of flashfics on LiveJournal.

This is a bit of a departure from my usual style of late-- it's Tykki's point-of-view as he talks to an offscreen Rabi about Rhode, an interview-style soliloquy. Odd, but intriguing. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.

Note: the title is a real word referring to a tale of recurring grief and woe.

I hope you enjoy it:D

Eia

**xxxxxx**

_**Jeremiad**_

**xxxxxx**

_Fun and games, baby, that's all there is to it._

If you asked her, that is most likely how she would answer you. You see, I know her better than anyone, and don't let anyone tell you different. She's my little sister. All of ours, really, but no one else really tries to understand her at all so don't bother listening to them. All you'll get are half-truths and confused maybes.

If you want to know about Rhode Camelot, you're best off asking me, even though I'm twice as likely to kill you as I am to talk to you. It depends on my mood in the moment. If you want to know badly enough, you'll risk it, but it's your own lookout so don't try blaming it on me if you die.

So you _do _have guts. Good to know in case I get hungry.

A joke, a joke! No need to turn green, silly boy. Ask away before I get bored.

When was she born, you ask. What a foolish question. Who really cares? She is... old. _Very _old. Older than your grandmother's grandmother's great-great-grandmother's cat, old enough to remember half of the world's history. She's forgotten a thousand times the amount you will ever learn. If you forget that and see her as only a precocious child, and you will die painfully, and quickly... if she's in a good mood. She has seen the worst that humans have to offer, and the best, and doesn't really care much for either. She would rather erase most of you and play with the worthy ones left over, but she is also lazy and so you live... unknowing of the death that almost came for you.

She hates humans. I'm sure you want to know why... of course you do.

It's because they're weak. They're fragile, they break easily and so quickly... truly terrible toys. Tickle one too hard and they split their diaphragms... it's pathetic. Do you really blame her for hating you? None of you can match her. All she wants is a playmate, but you would break within a day, probably less. All it would take is a moment of forgetfulness on her part, a little bit of power escaping her restraint, and you would warp and shatter like glass left out in winter.

Why does she want a playmate so badly? Not a half-bad question, that one.

I play with her when I'm around, but unfortunately I'm _not _around very much, not nearly enough to satisfy her. When my other side is stronger I can't stand being in the stronghold of the Earl, where destruction is the order of the day. When I'm white, I quite _like_ humans, and prefer to be somewhere where I can continue to believe that they will survive. An optimistic folly on my part.

In any case, Rhode is bored when I leave to make-believe with my little breakable human friends that they'll live, and so she seeks other entertainment. No one else will play with her, and so the boredom creeps and creeps until it drives her half-mad and she starts looking outside the mansion for cheaper entertainment.

That's where you come in. Anything to keep her mind from sliding into contemplation of the world she hates so passionately. Even if you break too quickly, searching for a new toy will keep her mind occupied enough to prevent it from going where she doesn't want it to go.

You see, humans actually frighten her terribly if she thinks about them too much. She has seen enough of history to understand the power of passionate self-sacrifice in the name of Love. She has watched and listened enough to know what humans believe Love to be composed of, and it frightens her. _Why should Love include the willingness to suffer for another, even to the point of dying for them? _she asked me once. I tried to explain it to her, but it was too alien to she who might just live forever.

Do you understand?

I thought not. Well, that's fine. I didn't expect you to. Your viewpoint is so narrow. You see through the lens of the hundred-- probably fewer-- years you have on this earth, and the urgency that comes with that. You can't possibly understand the taste and vision of eternity stretching before you, the flat beige everything starts to melt into after a few centuries of the same old bilge and flotsam day after day.

You are surprised. Why? Did you think eternal life was a wonderful thing, where each day was an opportunity to see something new or learn something not previously known by anyone? You are truly an idiot.

Does that mean you also thought Rhode and I are happy? Doubly an idiot, in that case.

Listen.

Once you have seen the pattern, no matter how new something looks, beneath it you can see the same old lines and textures of the old that came before it, and it is _boring. _Rhode hasn't seen anything truly new in a thousand years. You can't even begin to comprehend the tedium of that, so don't even try. She is utterly miserable. We all are... except for the Earl, but as you know he is mad and thus an exception.

I have the intrigue of my dual soul to keep me occupied, with trying to understand how it is that I can love and laugh and smile sometimes and hate and rend and destroy a heartbeat later. Rhode does not have that. All she has are her fragile toys... and her brilliant mind, which saw to the heart of everything ages ago and hasn't found anything worth thinking about since then.

Until you came along, that is, you people with your strangely different mindsets and your understanding smiles. You really piqued her interest. I hadn't seen her that lively in centuries, maybe more.

She really likes your friend Allen. I can empathize, I find him oddly fascinating as well. His is a soul that's seen darkness and understood it completely, and yet somehow hasn't given in to it. He still keeps his gave firmly fixed upwards at the sun even as he stands in the midst of the greatest horrors we can summon up. Yes, I can understand why she likes him. He's... interesting.

She doesn't really want to hurt him. If he breaks the boredom will come back, and what will she do then?

I'd have no problem killing him, as you know... I've already killed him once, and didn't look back as I walked away. He may be interesting, but he's also troublesome, and the latter definitely outweighs the former in my eyes. I'd rather have a dead fascination than a live problem, if you get my drift.

Rhode is much crueler than I am. She would keep you alive just to see what makes you tick, and take you apart piece by piece until she figured it out. I would just kill you right away and spare you the real suffering.

It's all a matter of perspective, you see.

...That would have been your cue to laugh. It's funny, you know? It's only death. You humans do it all the time, it's nothing to get so solemn about.

Perspective. Haha.

To you, she's a monster, something wrong and amiss with the world that must be eradicated for the sake of comfortable survival. She's a threat. I understand, because I also understand that you are all idiots and wouldn't know truth if it hit you upside the face with a hammer the size of the one you carry at your belt.

I'm actually quite surprised that _you_ don't understand. I've met you before, several times, in your other incarnations. You were always quite intelligent and willing to consider my viewpoint despite its differences from yours. Neutral, always present but never taking sides... well, you've really blown that to Hell, haven't you? It would be very difficult to be more 'on one side' than you are. They've totally converted you.

Ah, well. It's not like we wanted you anyway, don't look so apologetic. Fight for your little cause. You'll lose, and die, and then we'll laugh like usual. It's not a big ordeal like you seem to think it is.

And now you sputter and bluster at me. Be quiet, haven't you realized yet that I don't _care?_

Rhode Camelot is a being beyond your understanding. For that matter, so am I. You might as well give up now, Bookman, you'll never get it no matter how hard you try. Even if you're closer to immortality than most others, you're still a million miles too far away from the truth to make out more than the vaguest outline of it.

It's been pleasant talking to you. I hope you enjoy the pathetic handful of days you have left here with your friends. It would be a sorry waste if you didn't... not that I care particularly, I'm only being nice because I'm in the mood. Lucky you.

It's all just fun and games. Remember that and you'll be as fine as you can be, boy.

Now get out before I change my mind about killing you.

_That's_ a good boy. Try not to die too easily, all right? I'd be disappointed.

Hahaha. _Interesting._

**XxxxxxxxxxxX**

**A/N: **Hope you enjoyed it. :)


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